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Faithful House Program Ethiopia Presented at The Christian Connection for International Health Conference Baltimore, USA May , 2009 By Dr.Dehab Belay CRS Ethiopia. What is The Faithful House ?. Building strong marriage and families to affirm life and avoid risk
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Faithful House Program Ethiopia Presented at The Christian Connection for International Health Conference Baltimore, USA May , 2009 By Dr.Dehab Belay CRS Ethiopia
What is The Faithful House ? • Building strong marriage and families to affirm life and avoid risk • A fundamental importance for mutual fidelity and partner reduction in preventing the prevalence of HIV. • A vital contribution to the health and well being of individuals, couples and families.
Targetgroups: • Married and co-habitating couples • Engaged and intending couples • Young adult or singles to reinforce chastity and develop life skills • Parents to assist them in teaching chastity to their children
Implementation approach: • In ECC structures, through parish catechists, youth leaders, laity leaders etc. • Flexible implementation modality, regular time after mass or on weekly basis are options used. • The program is owned and implemented by ECS and diocesan offices • Central coordination and regular technical support is given by the national team.
Accomplishment: Preparation • Exhaustive discussions held among CRS, ECS, Diocese and communities • Experience sharing visit was made by 3 people from CRS & ECS to Ugandan FH program. • Report of visit was shared with other CRS, ECS and diocesan staff • Feasibility assessment was conducted in 2 selected dioceses and up to 3 parishes under each diocese • Draft implementation strategy was developed based on the assessments results and the Ugandan experience.
Accomplishment (cont’d) • The Faithful House manual was adopted to Ethiopian context. • Training of approximately 30 facilitators (ToF) was conducted centrally with the support from MLI & MLU. • The program launched in all 5 dioceses.
Results • 1,281 couples and other community members have been reached • Trained couples and community members have reached 8,146 peer contacts. • Translation of the FH manual in to local language is now finalized. • Integration and mainstreaming already stated with the family desk of each diocese and ECS.
Response from Participants • Highly appreciated by participants, they say, “We have attended many trainings and workshops, but TFH is very different…” • Woreda police members have requested and attended the full session FH along with their spouses.
Sustainability • FH is integrated into family desk of ECS • Family desk does not require additional funding but capacity building to run the program, • Part of the evangelization of the church • Integrated into the church's social service e.g pre-marital counseling • Support from the high level church authorities – the bishops
Uniqueness of TFH in the Ethiopian context • TFH functioned as a wake-up call for the need of post marital counseling service by the church • Highly appreciated and supported by the highest level of Church administration (Bishops) • Muslims and members of the Orthodox church have undergone training together (Adigrat) • Muslims willingness to adapt the curriculum when funds are available • Approach – does not necessarily require that couples meet away from home. • TFH implementation highly flexible (goes where interested couple are)
Challenges/Constraints: • Busy schedules of volunteer facilitators • In the beginning of implementation, was difficult for both parents to abandon the household at the same time in order to attend the training together. • High demand but difficult to meet due to lack of accessibility (some parishes geographic locations). • Limited budget to run the program as required. • Financial expectations by a few facilitatorss
The FAITHFULL HOUSE IN EAST AFRICA • Rwanda: are currently conducting operational research in order to determine the best individuals to train for reaching couples in the community and increasing program sustainability. • Uganda: the program has expanded to CVT and treatment programs where over 3,000 sero-negative and discordant couples have experienced the training on a slight modigied version of the curriculum